[TEAM 2] Teen Titans - Rising (IC)

[Illusia]

Rotten City. A city whose name fits its nature. Why someone would call this place such a disgusting name, one can't be sure. However, it's amazing how true its name is. The city is a place of pollution, poverty, and problems, in every meaning of the word. Here it seems the cloudy, sickly-green colored skies never open up for sun. Here not the poor nor the rich can escape from the crime-infested populace. At every turn or abandoned building that dots the cityscape, there is sure to be a thief, a murderer, or something else of vile immorality. Almost everyone fends for themselves in one way or another. Even most children learn to be wary of anything suspicious. The poor scrounge around the city's subways like sewer rats. The middle class families live in their own homes and minds, doing their best to shield each other -- namely the innocent children -- from the dark acts that happen within the city lines, trying their best to make their situation seem less. Only the rich, who either live far from the metropolitan and suburban waste or in the the centers of the city's downtown -- the technological, political, and economical hub of Rotten City -- can afford the security and cleanliness to successfully ignore the poor state of the rest of land. Unfortunately, not everyone is rich. For the 80% of the population who is not considered "upper class", life is a struggle. Injustice is rampant, and with the rise of the so-called "Supers" and "Metahumans", most who have begun using their powers for evil, they are in need of a hero now more than ever. Who will save them?

-_=_-_=_-_=_-

Carmen "Siren" Harper
=====================

The wind sent a chill down Siren's spine. It was early afternoon, but the day was dark, making it feel as if it was early evening rather than the middle-of-the-day. Carmen didn't know why she had left Jump City for this place anymore. Well, actually, she did; she just didn't like this city. It was in need of her help however, more-so than Jump City, and she felt it'd be easier to forget about her family, whom she had left, if she didn't stay in the same town as them. Better off for them to believe she had died from her abductor. That was why she came to Rotten City. She had been here for a few months now, but she still sometimes had to remind herself why she first came in order to not lose morale and return home.

Siren shivered again. She was stationed atop of a 3-story building, using the height as a good vantage point, and hoping to utilize the open-air as a means to make her music more easily heard. Currently, she was trying to track down a mass-murder who could possibly be a Super. She had run into him before, but she had not been able to catch him. In her left hand, she clutched her encased violin by the case's handle. Carmen peered around, trying to locate something. Then, a glimmer of violet light. Siren's eyes focused on the origin, and soon distinguished a trail of the same color. The trail was in short streams, or pulses. Carmen had to move around a bit, and shift her perspective to finally see the origin of the sound. Two booted feet. Each time one took a step and hit the ground, another pulse of the same light. It was him. She knew by the color, the color the feet made when the walked. He was walking across a street nearby. He wore a long, black overcoat, and a baseball hat that covered his presumably bald head. Now was the time to act.

Quickly, Siren put the violin case down and unlocked it. Smoothly, she opened the simple contraption and removed the violin and bow from it's resting place. Then, while focusing on the man, she began playing. Her right hand's fingers expertly clutched the bow as she moved it along the violin, while her left navigated themselves on the neck of the instrument, pressing on certain parts of the 4 long strings to make beautiful notes, which strung together to form a compelling piece. Too compelling. This was her power. Rainbows of light came from the instrument and they traveled to the man below, lulling him to find the source. Without a thought, the man naturally followed the music, not knowing he was being manipulated. He thought it was just his own human curiosity to find the great musician. HE didn't notice he was the only one.

Into the building and up the stairs, he went. Hearing the music intensify as he got closer, despite his actual location. Finally, he came into the roof where he stopped for a moment, realizing it was a trap. He remembered her. But now it was too late. Justice had to be served.

Siren was facing the man, and the man was facing her. Siren just kept playing as the man, now unaffected by the Beacon Emission, stripped off his overcoat to reveal two inhumanly large arms that bubbled and bent as if they weren't made of skin, muscle, and bones. The man leaned backwards and bent his arms back. Then, he propelled him arms forward by pushing his leaned body forward, and the arms stretched. They came at Siren with an impressive speed, no doubt much power behind the incoming, stretching arms. Carmen was prepared for this. She had also remembered her confrontation with him. Her playing changed in response. The music became odd, almost convoluted. It was not as enchanting as before. She played quick, staccato notes. The rainbows of light that had previously fluttered from the violin became darker and less free-flowing. They seemed to take on the form of a sort of blade. A blade of invisible sound, or in Carmen's eyes of dark colors. She focused on the man's arms as they came towards her, and once two of these waves had been created, she played a loud screech then stopped. It was the sound's cue to go.

The "blades" screeched forward, making the noise of fingernails rushing against a chalkboard, and each met with one of the arms. The arms were sliced, easily. Mostly because there was no bone in them. In the natural, a sudden screeching noise had been played and then in a matter of seconds, the man's arms had been clean cut. No one else had seen the dark colors of sound, only Carmen.

The man was taken aback. What had just happened? Then the pain surged in, and he yelled out, but the sound never made it to anyone else's ears. Siren intercepted the bright, white waves of the scream, and used her manipulation and absorption to force the waves to echo back into the man's ears. Only he heard himself scream, although Carmen saw it. The man fell to his knees, trying to force himself to go on, but when your arms have just been cut off, almost simultaneously, it's difficult to calm down. He was a weak mutant, and little of a match for Siren now that she had been prepared.

As he lay writhing on the floor, Siren began playing her violin again, letting the colors reach across the city, urging anyone to come up the building. People did so, and found the handless murderer vulnerable. The citizens called the police and the ambulances, and soon the man was detained, with no sight of Siren. She had left as soon as she 'heard' people approaching.

Now, she walked the streets, continuing her day of secret crime-fighting.

[Milan]

The Black Witch

Something moved within the shadows; something strange, advancing, covered by them. No one noticed it, but it was there, happening. If someone with a little talent with magic were to focus their eyes in the dark corners of the streets, the blurry shape of a person covered by a black cape would suddenly become visible.
'Rotten City...', the figure thought, looking around her, concealed by the darkness, 'I came here cause I was curious about its name, but I see it was no joke...'.

Her name was Verona Laguna; or, at least, that was how her parents named her, 18 years ago. Only, that never actually happened. She was a girl outside of existence, but still right there, tangible to whoever wanted to reach out and touch her. Because of this, she now responded to the name of "The Black Witch". Not many knew of this name, though. Only those who had once hired her for some odd job, or had been saved by her in the span of the three years that had passed since she first obtained her powers, though many had heard the rumors.

She was a nomad, always walking, and never planned on staying long anywhere.
A few days ago, someone in a bar in the middle of the route joked about the name of this city, peaking her curiosity. So she set ways and reached the place in two days, only to find this.
All she could think about was that this city was in the worst state out of every other place she had visited in her travels; and she had even been to Gotham City before.

Well, at least Gotham had Batman, but this place... This place was on its own. "That's not fair..."; her train of thoughts was cut by the sound of a woman screaming in fear. She turned her head to its direction, spotting a dark alley. "It's always the dark alley"; leaving those around her confused by the sound of her voice, she took off with amazing speed, and entered the alley, still invisible, only to spot a man trying to force a young woman to undress. In other words, a rape waiting to happen. Disgusted by the scene, she took one of her many long needles, and threw it at the man's throat; it pierced through it until perforating his trachea. The man fell to his knees in shock, in pain but not dead. His hands tried to reach for the projectile, as half its length was still shinning outside his body.

"I wouldn't take that off if I were you", the witch's deep, yet feminine voice echoed inside the alley. When it became evident that the man would not listen to his invisible attacker, and would try to take it off anyways, she clicked her fingers, and a layer of ice formed around the needle, keeping it in place. The rapist tried to scream, but instead fell unconscious to the victim's feet.

Speaking of which, the victim was trembling, in complete shock for what had just happened. She turned to look at Verona, as she walked out of the shadows, her hood covering her face but not the cold shinning her eyes emitted, and a mysterious aura flinging around her.
"Are you ok, miss?", she asked, not getting too close. The woman trembled more, but nodded, too scared to speak. "Please call an ambulance for the man", Verona asked, and then left, as the woman nodded again.

She exited the alley, noticing that not even one person had stopped preoccupied by the screaming, trying to help.
Yes, this city was rotten to its very soul.

[Regomania]

The Music Stopped, and everyone clapped.


Who were they clapping for? Well, at the front of the rather large ballroom sat a girl, with hair gently brushed past her shoulders, sitting softly on her straight back. The young girl was wearing a rather fancy like dress, with sequences at the bottom. She wore lovely blue flats to complement the blue dress she wore. This girl's name was Rose. Rose Claudia Kings. But She goes by a much different name. Her friends, colleagues, family and others all call her Rose. But in crime, she calls herself Chess. She stood up, and took a slight bow. "Hippo-pot-im-us... Chess said extremely quietly. It was a trick she learnt from her Father when she learned the basics of piano. She moved past the crowd rather quickly. Chess stared outside the window, the disgusting green sky remaining the same ever since she moved here. She hated Rotten City. Her Family was a forced to be reckoned with. Her family were the family of King enterprises. A military company known for making weapons, vehicles, you name it. But the CEO and Big Boss. Jackson Kings disappeared to Chicago, Chess and her Family had no way of contact to him, so they had to run the company without his guidance....

This was the only nice place in Rotten City right now, a fancy dinner party hosted by a company that King Enterprises work with. Chess quickly brushed past the crowd, but was stopped by a young man, about 18. He looked extremely handsome. He wore a black tuxedo with a red bow-tie.

"Good Evening." He said with a small british accent. "Name's Brandon Michellis." He said "My father is the host of this Party." He shook Rose's hand.

Chess looked at him. "I Apologize, but I have to go. Family business..." Chess said, walking past Brandon.

She looked left, then right, and ran into a hallway down towards a broom closet. Chess shut, then locked the closet. She quickly looked around for the bag she sneaked into the building. She found it past some cleaning chemicals and pulled it out. It was a backpack, plain and simple. In one pocket there was her computer, and some clothes. Chess pulled out the clothes, a plaid shirt, leggings, a plain white shirt and some low converse. She slipped the dress off, and quickly got dressed into the comfy and casual clothing. She folded and packed the dress back into her bag, then pulled out the laptop, a MacBook Pro. She sat down on the bag, and pulled a USB she hid away in her plaid shirt pocket. She hid that in there before.

Chess opened the computer, and inserted it into the computer. She clicked the folder marked "Michellis Inc Files and Info" Chess opened it, and browsed through the files. Suddenly, A Sharp pain came from her head. A scream filled her thoughts. "Crud! What now?!" Chess muttered. She got back into reality again. Chess looked at the Computer, and clicked a file called "Companies" She looked at the file. A whole load of documents with company names on them.

Ryan and Stein Building and Demolition.

Baxter Bombs and explosives

Demoman Inc: All explosives you need!

Chess noticed a pattern.... They were all Demolition and building companies....

[RedBunny]

The air is stale in this city of rotten. Smog entered into her lungs as dark clouds hung overhead. Is it going to rain? No, it's not. Ever since Theo came to this city, the clouds were always this color - a sickly green that isn't natural for a planet like this. She often wondered why she came here in the first place, but that answer was obvious. No one cares.


It was easy to blend among these humans. Most of them don't bother to indulge themselves to care for one another, so they won't dig deep too much into her. It was an ideal place to remain hidden, if not a bit difficult to gather information by speaking. The chances that these humans will find an outsider - a foreign specie - among them are low. There is no sense of law or order in Rotten City. Crime and violence are always rampant. It is easy to keep to oneself since this city is a place where everybody have a secret to hide. These people avoid one another with narrowed eyes of paranoia; they worried only about themselves.


It disturbed her greatly how grim this place is. This place is no different than the current state of her planet. Is this truly a great place to stay? Is it worth the trouble to clean up crimes to only be replace with more?


No matter. She was sent here for a purpose. At least one place must be secured. This is the place where she began, she might as well finished it here.


As Theo, AKA Ice Burn, dug her heels deeper into concrete, she grabbed a metal trash bin that the robbers tossed in her path. It was a failed attempt to slow this hero down as she would just kick objects out of the way or even using these obstacles against them with her throws. She was hot on their trail. She was catching up to them fast.


Rapid shots of bullets came speeding at her, each one whizzed by without hitting a mark as she wore the vandals down. Their aims were off, their stamina isn't large. It didn't help that they were holding bags of stolen goods in one hand while being chased by a "Super." The alleys were dark and narrowed, but she could seem them in the dim light. With a flick of her wrist, the trash bin flew and, unlike the criminals with their guns, it hit its intended targets.


The thieves were brought down instantly, whelping as they were toppled by the trash bin. Quickly, Theo came upon them, taking a criminal in each hand. Although they struggled against her grip, she handled them with ease. She each one into a trash can in an angle that would be difficult to escape from. In the distance, the police sirens were approaching fast. Ice Burn quietly left, allowing herself to blend into the rush hour, her eyes observing shadows and ears stretching for passing conversations.

[Illusia]

START:
...
Plotline 1 - Titans Go!

The people hustle-and-bustled through the busy times of afternoon. It was Friday, the end of the work week. Most of the employed workers were dreaming of the weekend, as they flooded back into their buildings from lunch. One such Building was the Miller Tower home of the Mega-corporation called Astrotech. The company was one of the bigger ones in the City, along with King Enterprises. It specialized in "bringing the future to today," or at least that's what their motto was. It seemed everyone who worked their was a well-educated professional. Only the very intellectual or very rich were ever seen inside. Today was one of those days. One could see a myriad of the workers waltzing back into the skyscraper to resume their work. Unfortunately, most of the worker would not be leaving this day.

At exactly 2:00PM, the building's perimeter lit up. Explosives from underground. The foundation of the skyscraper shook for a bit. At first, it looked as if everything was okay. Then, suddenly, the building teetered back-and-forth. A cacophonous chorus composed of the poor, unlucky victims in the building resonated throughout the air. Inside the building it was a frenzy. Some of the workers were frozen in their fearful state. Others were dashing around in a rampage, trying to find a way out. Some we're helping their fellow man, and others kept to themselves only trying to maintain their own, personal survival.

The building began to tip more and more like a deadly take on a swing and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Every minute it bent further, torturing the on-lookers and the victims. Soon, the square skyscraper bent too far and it finally collapsed. Cries filled the air, as the collapsed building landed into other ones, causing a "domino effect" and making some smaller buildings crumble, and as debris and smoke launched into the sky fogging up any good sight of the aftermath.

News helicopters also filled the air, as they began to document the event, but most of their efforts were futile. If they could see, they would spot a slender figure stalking the site in silence, hiding behind the havoc to remain unseen.

Who had done this? What was going on? Why had they done this?

-_=_-_=_-_=_-

Carmen "Siren" Harper
=====================

'Today doesn't see as bad as usual,' Carmen thought to herself as she walked down the paved sidewalks of Rotten City. Carmen almost smiled, which was very difficult for most people living in Rotten City to do. Of course she didn't smile. Why? She was walking down the road, heading towards downtown, when she began to see a plethora of colorful, shrill lights vibrating from downtown. Siren didn't know what exactly was going on. She recognized the smoke, and realized people were screaming so she took her pace up into a sprint, heading towards the site.

It took a minute or two, but she finally made it. By now the building had fallen and most of the people were dead or had evacuated. There were some survivors in need of help however, and Siren began to assist them, doing her best to comfort them, which is difficult to do when you can't talk. She didn't think about the people behind this "terrorist" attack; her mind was on other things. If she had been paying attention however, she would've noticed a shadowy figure slithering around doing something suspicious. The smoke, dust, and chaos made it too difficult to see what he was doing.

[Regomania]

Rose Claudia "Chess" Kings


Chess's computer slid off her lap, not taking that much damage. Chess was yelling, partially screaming from all the pain and voices form her head. She soon got back up on her feet, and looked around. she quickly packed up her bag, and ran out of the Closet. While running, she passed by Brandon, who quickly grabbed her arm. "Good Evening." He said. "Mind Telling me what you're doing?" Chess looked at him. She lifted her arm, but Brandon kept a grip on it. "Leaving, that's what...." Chess said, slipping her hand out of Brandon's grip. She raced off down the hallway.

"What a peculiar girl." Brandon muttered.


Chess raced past a window, but paced herself back a bit to see what was outside. It was horrifying, the Astrotech building on the other side looked like it was cut in half.....

[Milan]

Black Witch
"What in the name of..."
The explosions had been enough to draw Verona's attention. She was at the other side of the city, so she ran as fast as she could over the roofs, levitating for a bit whenever the distance between them was too long to jump, though it didn't occur much. She got there the moment it had collapsed, and her shinning light-blue eyes opened like plates, observing the destruction from left to right.

She started hearing the screams of the survivors, when she caught glimpse of a sneaky shadow from the corner of her eyes. Her intuition told her he had have something to do with all this, and she almost took off to follow him, when she saw a kid crying for help down there. She hesitated for a few moments before sighing in defeat, "goddamnit".

She floated down, her cape moving in interesting ways, but her hood not leaving its place, until her feet touched the floor. She then ran over to the kid, who's foot was trapped under some rocks. He was crying from the pain and also from fear; and the fear intensified when he saw the tall, black and covered figured that approached him. He started sweating, and Verona understood his reaction.

"It's ok", she raised her hands to show him she wasn't up to anything bad, "I'm here to help you, ok?", she crouched down next to him, and stabbed her shinning eyes in his'. After a little, he understood, and nodded. "Ok, just don't move".

After saying this, she got back up again, and chanted something. What was keeping his foot trapped lifted from the ground and fell back to it a few meters away. He smiled, seeing he was free, but she wasn't done yet. Her sensitive ears caught the sirens of the ambulances approaching, so she picked him up in her arms with surprising strength, and started taking him over one that had already parked. Her face had maintained a hard-cold expression during the whole situation, but the kid kept that smile in his face, leaning his head on her, feeling safe. "Are you a good witch?", he asked innocently, looking up to her face. She waited a few seconds before answering, "...yeah, you could say so".

She left the boy in the capable hands of the doctors there, and went back to the scene to help more innocents.

[RedBunny]

Ice Burn


It had happened so suddenly on her daily patrol. She was simply walking the streets, ears perked for information, when suddenly one of the nearby buildings had exploded. It was like a domino effect as various small shops fell victim to falling remains of buildings. She had looked up in time to see a large block of concrete aiming over her head. Instinctively, she rolled to the side, allowing the rubble to come in contact with empty ground. More pieces of rumble - ranging from large to small - started to fall over her head. Theo continued to dodge, swiftly side stepping the small pieces while kicking the larger ones to the side with all her strength. As soon as she was sure no more objects were going to land on her head, she paused.

Slowly, she scanned her surroundings, spotting large crowds of people running, large chunks of rubble laying on the streets, and broken remains of buildings. What could've caused this..? Theo quickly shook her head. She shouldn't be asking, she should be taking action. It all started with that explosion that had Theo's veins running with adrenaline. She cracked her knuckles, opening and closing her fists as concrete dust scattered around her feet. Her ears seemed so clogged yet she can hear the screams for help. Smoke twirled all around her, specks of debris flew. Instantly, she started toward the center of the scene with hopes to help the fallen.